Oprah May Run for President After All — If God Tells Her To

Those of you who were hoping that Oprah Winfrey would run for president in 2020 were probably discouraged by her pretty strong recent statements denying interest in the challenge. “[I]t’s just not in my spirit,” she told one interviewer earlier this month.

But it seems now that there was a loophole in Winfrey’s disclaimer, according toThe Hill:

Oprah Winfrey said she’s had billionaires offer to fund her presidential campaign if she runs for the White House, but said she’s waiting for a sign from God.

“I went into prayer,” she said of calls for her to run for president.

Now, it’s reasonably clear that the Almighty has not spoken to the billionaire entertainer/journalist/philanthropist/entrepreneur just yet.

“‘God, if you think I’m supposed to run, you gotta tell me, and it has to be so clear that not even I can miss it.’ And I haven’t gotten that yet,” Winfrey told People Magazine in an interview published Wednesday.

This statement gave me the willies, since I recently watched an episode of the cable-TV mini-series Wacoabout the famous 1993 siege in which Branch Davidian leader David Koresh reneged on a deal to surrender to authorities because he was awaiting a “sign from God.” It did not turn out well for anyone involved, to put it mildly.

In Oprah’s case, of course, if she does nothing, her home will not be besieged by heavily armed federal agents; she’ll keeping doing what she does.

One interpretation of her remarks is that she’s really saying no power on earth can get me to run for president. If so, it would have been much better if she had expressly put it that way. Otherwise the tantalizing, if most likely illusory, prospect of a Winfrey run will continue to live on in the imaginations of people in and out of politics, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile. And there’s no telling when the talk will end: If nobody can tell Oprah Winfrey what to do, it’s even clearer that nobody can tell the God of Hosts when to send a sign — or not.

#BREAKING: I’m told the entire @BPDAlerts Emergency Response Team has resigned from the team, a total of 57 officers, as a show of support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving Martin Gugino, 75. They are still employed, but no longer on ERT. @news4buffalo

In case you were wondering about the unmarked federal agents dotting Washington

Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily armed riot police around Washington, D.C., in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or names badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters have identified some of them as belonging to Bureau of Prisons’ riot police units from Texas, but others remain a mystery.

The images of such heavily armed, military-style men in America’s capital are disconcerting, in part, because absent identifying signs of actual authority the rows of federal officers appear all-but indistinguishable from the open-carrying, white militia members cos-playing as survivalists who have gathered in other recent protests against pandemic stay-at-home orders. Some protesters have compared the anonymous armed officers to Russia’s “Little Green Men,” the soldiers-dressed-up-as-civilians who invaded and occupied western Ukraine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that federal officers identify themselves and their agency.

To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).